Writer, theorist, and media artist Svetlana Boym, argues in her most recent book, Another Freedom: The Alternative History of an Idea that since “Fortunately, paradise has already been lost”, the time has come to co-create freedom in this world. Boym, Professor of Comparative Literature at Harvard, will speak and show slides at Proteus Gowanus, exploring the idea and experience of freedom in politics and arts across cultures suggesting that our attempts to imagine freedom should be more adventurous, occupying the space not only of “what is” but also “what if.”

Boym proposes a new vocabulary for the experience of freedom, conceived as co-creation in the public world and as an adventure in judging, acting and thinking that is open to paradigm shifts as well as change of hearts and minds. Boym’s central questions point to the paradoxes of freedom: What, if anything, must we be certain of in order to tolerate the measure of uncertainty in our contemporary existence? How much common ground or shared trust is needed to allow for the uncommon experiences of freedom? Can they be transported across national borders?

Boym will also show slides of her own work as an artist and open the floor to general discussion following her presentation.

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